Another fairly quiet week around here. If you follow my posts you may have deduced that I haven’t done as many recently. Or you may not have missed them at all which is fine with me. For those who have enjoyed Virtual Shopping days, take heart. Virtual shopping hasn’t stopped completely but due to computer glitches/minor internet connection woes and life in general, I’ve stopped for now. Until things calm down a bit, I really want to spend the hours it takes to find the perfect items for my treasuries doing other things away from the computer.
I love to promote not just my own mosaics but items I find by others. One of my greatest joys is sharing a particular piece of art, upcycled item, vintage piece, jewelry creation or home decorative accent I come across during the cruising I do on Etsy. Just because I’m not doing the treasuries at the moment, doesn’t mean I don’t do a little virtual shopping. It’s just done on a smaller scale at the moment. I still find an item or two to share on Pinterest. If you have an account, you can find me at http://pinterest.com/earthmothermos/ where I share a few new things I come across under the boards named “Etsy Goodness”, “For the Home” and “My Style”. In using Pinterest, I’ve still managed to share a few things I find and love and don’t have to spend a lot of time at the computer when my time is limited or our technology here in our home has the hiccups. In other words, I’m still sharing, just in a different way. I miss making treasuries and will be doing them again soon on a regular basis like I did before when the time dedicated to doing them is available once more.
I’m also doing a daily pick on tumblr using a theme each week. This week is grey and yellow. They are neutral colors for me and blend well with a lot of different styles of decor. I LOVE versatile decorating ideas!
One of those things I’m concentrating on right now away from the computer is the serving trays for my daughter’s wedding in 10 days! It is also my other daughter’s 27th birthday on the same day. I have a lot to be grateful for and celebrate about this year. And more gifts to make!! Yay!!
I haven’t been too successful in getting a decent photo of the trays yet but I did take one of a finished tray yesterday that gives you all an idea of what they look like. Mirror is hard to photograph but I have the hang of it and try to capture what the eye sees. That reddish blotch in the center is a sun catcher in my window. All of the mosaic is in mirror.
My daughter’s colors are purple and grey. These trays are plastic with a silver painted finish. I used recycled silver mirror, nipping and slicing them into triangles and grouted in white. Once the grout was dry, I used a full strength acrylic purple craft paint, painting the grout and wiping it off before it dried. This is an easy technique to get just the right color you’re looking for. If you aren’t sure what color you want, I suggest watering down the paint and getting a light coat on a small patch of grout. If you don’t like it, it is easier to paint over with a new color. Full saturated color, like I have used above, is harder to change but not impossible.
I showed my daughter the first two trays I made last week and got her okay to continue on. I wasn’t all that thrilled with them because the grout didn’t stick around the outer edge of the circle like I expected it to because it’s plastic and not wood, MDF or glass. It grabbed the mirror just fine and went around it like it was supposed to, but didn’t look all that great to me. The photo above is the first one I made and one of the ones I showed her before adding the paint to it. I tried adding white glue to some grout and put it around the area but it just wouldn’t stick and started getting me angry which is just plain silly. She said it didn’t matter that much to her if they were “perfect” and I agree but felt that old pressure to go for perfection anyway. Instead of stressing about the imperfections, I am concentrating on getting them finished and shined up well for her table. I also added smaller pieces of mirror along the areas that bothered me on the first 2 filling in a little more space for the grout to stick to, with the next 2 trays. I like how they looked when I grouted them yesterday. I have 4 more to do plus find something new to wear for the wedding soon. Somehow, over the past few years, all of my “dress” clothes have grout, odd colors of paint here and there, adhesives and primer on them. 
In other news, I’ll be working on a post on the other blog this weekend. It is likely that the post itself won’t be published until next week around this time. I spend a lot of time tweaking those, changing my thoughts and my mind often. I’ve been having some fairly good “aha” moments and as always, love to share them when I do. I don’t update that blog daily or weekly. Just whenever I feel the pull to share something I’ve discovered about my life along the way. If you want to follow my personal journey into enlightenment, you can find it here: http://theviewfromearth-earthmothermosaics.blogspot.com/
I hope you enjoy the rest of your week. Make it creative!
Stay peaceful.
☼-EarthMotherMosaics
©2012 Cindy White, EarthMotherMosaics
